Poll

what

reality is of course, real
24 (39.3%)
reality is obviously a virtual simulation, played by friends
6 (9.8%)
reality is very much an illusion. it only seems so real because we are used to believing that things are real as it is. we were born to test, and for the world to progress. great thinkers are the reason we have anything today, and they passed the test
8 (13.1%)
brontosaurue
23 (37.7%)

Total Members Voted: 61

Author Topic: is reality a virtual simulation, an illusion, or just real?  (Read 1593 times)

What if our universe is just a tiny bubble in a huge group of other universes.

I can safely say it isn't because if it did it would require an infinite amount of memory (and processing power) to simulate, unless the "universe" that it's being simulated in doesn't obey the laws of thermodynamics as we know it.
That's why that explanation doesn't work as the answer to solipsism. There's no guarantee that the 'real' universe follows the same laws of physics.


By literal definition, reality has to be real. The very word "reality" means that it includes and encompasses all that is real. As for whether or not reality exists, we can easily observe that whatever we can interpret via our senses to be physically existent is, in fact, real. Bothering ourselves and others with unanswerable questions such as "what is reality?" detracts from our ability to improve our own lives and the lives of others through obtaining and applying knowledge of that which we can objectively observe, and I don't give a stuff what Henry Gayvid Thoreau-up has to say about any of it.

found this http://gizmodo.com/5-reasons-our-universe-might-actually-be-a-virtual-real-1665353513
also, reality is the term i used to describe existance of us and what we know, see, and experience in general
i can't use any other term really


What if our universe is just a tiny bubble in a huge group of other universes.
one of my personal favorite theories along with "im the only sentient being everyone else just appears to be sentient" "a live broadcast of you pooping has appeared on every television in america" and "your thoughts arent in your head everybody can hear them they just dont say anything because it'll make you feel bad"

is this the real life?

or is this just fantasy?

found this http://gizmodo.com/5-reasons-our-universe-might-actually-be-a-virtual-real-1665353513
also, reality is the term i used to describe existance of us and what we know, see, and experience in general
i can't use any other term really
Every one of these things are fundamental laws of the universe which have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not reality is "simulated." It should be fairly obvious that this article was written purely to be clickbait and to incite useless thought in the basest of minds, but I'll go through it and point out some fundamental flaws nonetheless.

First of all, the article directly states that the theory of quantum reality isn't The Matrix, and I know that many people will simply overlook that detail. The idea of physical reality, on the other hand, is - as described - self-evident, but the idea that it is an excitation of a quantum reality with its own laws is also within the realm of possibility. However, this should also be fairly obvious, as it is already well-known that the actions of fundamental particles in the universe directly determine - and comprise - the actions of all physical objects.

The first point seems to altogether discard the idea that the theory of quantum reality isn't The Matrix, and goes on to say that the physical limit on the speed of all particles is evidence to suggest that the universe "refresh[es] at a finite rate." This is complete bullstuff for several obvious reasons, the most fatal of which being that there is literally no evidence to even imply that a finite refresh rate is a definitive and universal concept of computing. On the subject of computing, the paragraph concludes by comparing reality to the simulation of a supercomputer, again breaking the vice that its theory is not an brown townogue of everyone's favorite simulated reality movie.

The idea that "time is malleable" is also completely unrelated to the theory of simulated reality. At this point in the article, it is essentially completely meaningless to say that it is not comparing reality to The Matrix, so we'll ignore that for now and rightfully assume that whoever wrote this was attempting to justify the idea that the universe is the product of a computerized simulation. The paragraph in this section makes literally no connection between simulated reality and game lag as it describes, merely stating that there is a relation but never explaining what it is. I congratulate the writer for mentioning "gamers," because as stated before, it attempts to pander to the lowest denomination of intelligence.

The third point seems to base itself on the image that we've all seen in a documentary - you know? - the one where the host places a large ball on a large sheet under tension and watches a smaller ball circle around it when given a push. In case it wasn't unbelievably obvious when the host literally loving said it, this is a representation of what gravity does to space and time. Just as before, the article does not elaborate on why this suggests a simulated reality, but makes another connection to computing that is completely unrelated to the topic, but does incite personability from those who think they know literal stuff about computing but can't tell a floppy drive from a floating-point mathematical unit by using long words and describing scientifically observable effects that have interesting-sounding German names.

There is literally no loving comprehensible reason - not even an imaginable one that the article once again fails to provide - why dark matter could even remotely relate to simulated reality, once again drawing facts from modern computing and programming conventions which are COMPLETELY - let me make this very clear - COMPLETELY unsubjected to any sort of physical law. The very idea that the convention of performing processing operations has literal stuff to do with the energy in the universe is loving handicapped for a variety of reasons, many of which are evident when the author invents the obsolete term "processing points" to represent locations where computerized logical processing is performed in the universe. It is obvious why this is bullstuff, but in case you can't tell or if I haven't made it clear enough, modern programming conventions are not subject to physical loving law.

In the fifth and (thank the gods of uncivilized invective) final point in this steaming pile of horsestuff disguised as a tech news article, the equally odious author claims that two particles' "programs merge to jointly run two points." This isn't even relevant in modern programming, let alone imaginary stuff that the writer makes up as he goes along, and makes literally no sense from a computing standpoint. It also brings up the interesting idea that the universe is a "screen," which makes even less logical sense considering that any other physical interactions in the universe show no sign (as described above) that a computer could be performing these actions. The author then goes on to explain that the standard model of physics - thus far the most accurate and provable (albeit as yet incomplete) method for explaining the physical universe - must not be an accurate explaination and should be substituted for an even less sensible theory because it "can't explain gravity, proton stability, anti-matter, quark charges, neutrino mass or spin, inflation, family generations, or quantum randomness—all critical issues." The entire paragraph is essentially a failed attempt at refuting belief in the Standard Model 'because it's incomplete.'

In the conclusion of this article, the author essentially cops out of all responsibility regarding the absolute incredibility of his pseudotheory by summating his odorous mass of feces in a ludicrously oversimplified explanation of how his theory explains many phenomena which occur in the universe, while completely and utterly ignoring the obvious fact that his theory effectively attempts to validate that the entire universe exists within a program written by a particularly stupid web developer and runs on an Intel 8080.

In conclusion, this entire piece of writing was physically painful for me to read, and I hope you all enjoyed my brown townysis of exactly why whoever wrote it did it only to pander to 12-year-olds who have recently had their first existential crCIA.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2015, 08:22:58 PM by Redo »



-logic as forget-
holy stuff that was a huge wall of text

Who cares? If it's not real then hey, we're here anyway right? If it is real, great. Live your life. Either way you should operate under the assumption that reality exists. 


Who cares? If it's not real then hey, we're here anyway right? If it is real, great. Live your life. Either way you should operate under the assumption that reality exists. 
This yep
There are a lot of existential quandaries that can be avoided by realizing that they don't matter.